I'm a contributing editor to Forbes Magazine, where I write about games and technology. My book Of Dice and Men: The Story of Dungeons & Dragons and The People Who Play It is a history of one of the most important games of our time.
I'm a primate and a skeptic. I have root access and I'm not afraid to use it. I'm a beer geek. I can make stone tools and arrowheads. I drop science like Galileo dropped the orange. I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.

Save The Realm: Spellfury Needs A Cut Of Your Treasure

A good elf is hard to find. Sure, the residents of Rivendell will soon pad across movie screens everywhere… but aside from the occasional Peter Jackson movie and HBO’s Game of Thrones, televised or filmed high fantasy is in short supply.

So it’s a good thing fantasy fans have the Internet, and web series like Spellfury, which follows the adventures of an elf named Druinia and her magic sword. Writer and director Travis Gordon has been making the fantasy/action/comedy series since 2008; He describes it as Lord of the Rings meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets The Muppets, with a little bit of Stars Wars thrown in.

Gordon and his team have made 16 episodes of the series so far, and they’ve been seen over five million times online. Season one was even broadcast nationally in Canada. You can watch all 16 of the existing episodes for free at the Spellfury site.

All this was done on a shoe-string budget, with casts and crews that volunteered their time, and the team made very little money from the show. So now Gordon’s run out of cash to keep things going –and he needs your help to complete season 2.

Last month, Gordon launched a fundraising campaign on indiegogo to “save the realm.” He’s only asking for $24,000 to finish the season with a bang –but with only three days to go in the campaign, he’s only raised 6% of what he needs.

Since the launch of sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo, fantasy fans have been awash in worthy projects that need help from fans. But if you’ve ever watched the Spellfury series –or if you watch them for the first time now, and like them– you can’t argue with donating at least a couple of bucks to the fund.

Earlier this week I asked Travis Gordon to to tell me about about the series and how the fundraising campaign is going.

Why did you start making this series?

Travis Gordon: I started making Spellfury because I love the fantasy genre and there weren’t any fantasy shows on TV or online. I decided to make a series that I wanted to watch, and hoped others would enjoy it too. I love Dungeons and Dragons, the Muppets and Star Wars, so there’s elements of those three things in Spellfury. I know if someone told me about a webseries with dragons, puppets and a hot elf with a light sabre, I’d definitely be watching it! It’s been tough to tackle such an ambitious project on such a shoestring budget but I’m proud of what we’ve done so far.

How did you fund the first season and a half?

The crew and I all pitched in financially to fund the first 16 episodes. We do have ad revenue deals with YouTube, Blip.tv and Koldcast.tv, but they only cover a very small percentage of the costs of the show. We also dabbled with product placements and commercials in season two but it didn’t make much money. We finally decided to let people know that we’re having trouble keeping the show going, and do a fundraiser. Hopefully they’ll see how much love and hard work goes into making Spellfury, and want to see more.

What do you need money for?

I really need to rent a permanent studio space to do the show properly. It would allow me to leave up our green screens, lights and equipment, which would save time and also give us a spot to set up our editing and visual effect computers. We also need to start building real sets (like a tavern) which will speed up my ability to get episodes out faster. Right now, the bottleneck is the amount of time it takes to replace green screen backgrounds and composite virtual backgrounds. The way things are going, it takes 3-4 months to do one episode; with real sets and a studio space I can get that down to 1 episode a month. I also need the money to hire some skilled compositors to help with the visuals effects on the show. I also need to pay the actors and crew, and buy some new costumes and equipment we need to finish the season.

What else are you doing to raise funds?

Besides telling people online about the indiegogo campaign, we’re also doing an offline/fundraiser event in the community, where we’re going to show all 16 episodes of Spellfury on a big screen and invite the public. The small town I live in (Perth, Ontario,Canada) has been extremely receptive. We have two local sponsors covering the costs of the event (Best Western Plus Perth Parkside Inn & Spa, and Paul Gordon, a local Re/Max Realtor). Local businesses have also donated hundreds of dollars of product to our raffle draw that night. We’re hoping to have a big turnout and raise some money to help fund the show.

If you can’t raise the funds you need, what will happen?

I hope to be able to continue doing the series. We’ve been making episodes since 2008 and it’s been a long journey of ups and downs, but we’ve always found a way to continue. We’ve outlasted 95% of the web shows that were around when we started because we love our show, we refuse to quit and we continue to work hard.

What happens if you raise more than the minimum you need? How will the show benefit?

If we exceed our goal I’d like to make much longer episodes, right now they’re 5 minutes long and come out every 3-4 months, best case scenario I’d like to make 30 minute episodes and deliver one a week, that would be a dream come true!

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.